Voila! Bluebird Levitation!
This is actually not a mountain bluebird parlor trick, but rather it appears to be an invitation to engage in the annual spring ritual of avian reproduction. The male landed on the nest box, seemed to signal with one wing, then did this hop and raised its wing. The female immediately came over and landed on the nest box and things progressed from there. And quickly. The elapsed time from when he landed to the time the marriage was fully consummated was two to three seconds.
I wish I had a good stream of images to show the full sequence, but I wasn't looking through the viewfinder or focusing (camera on a tripod). I just saw the bird approach the box, hit the shutter, and hoped something turned out.
Voila! Bluebird Levitation!
This is actually not a mountain bluebird parlor trick, but rather it appears to be an invitation to engage in the annual spring ritual of avian reproduction. The male landed on the nest box, seemed to signal with one wing, then did this hop and raised its wing. The female immediately came over and landed on the nest box and things progressed from there. And quickly. The elapsed time from when he landed to the time the marriage was fully consummated was two to three seconds.
I wish I had a good stream of images to show the full sequence, but I wasn't looking through the viewfinder or focusing (camera on a tripod). I just saw the bird approach the box, hit the shutter, and hoped something turned out.